Why build your Death Stars this way?

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GStone
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Why build your Death Stars this way?

Post by GStone » Mon Jan 07, 2008 3:28 pm

I've watched Return of the Jedi several times over the last few days because there has always been something that was weird to me. Can anybody guess why we don't see a whole frame from the entire DS to be connected to, though we see the outer hull in certain sections? I can get why some parts are completed earlier than others, but what I don't get is why DS 2 looks like it just had a bunch of sections blasted away from it, as far as an in-universe answer.

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Post by Ted C » Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:45 pm

I would venture to guess that their primary construction efforts were concentrated around the main reactor and superlaser, so those systems and all of the structure needed to support them would be completed on schedule. The other side was presumably framed in with just essential elements: enough solid support to handle recoil from the superlaser, thrusters to rotate the station so it could aim, etc.

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Post by Thanatos » Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:27 pm

I can get why some parts are completed earlier than others, but what I don't get is why DS 2 looks like it just had a bunch of sections blasted away from it, as far as an in-universe answer.
That's how ships are constructed. They build the component sections separately and then add them to the structure.

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Post by GStone » Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:36 am

But, they aren't building that ship in the water, are they? And the bottom of the boat looks like it was finished before any other section. Even if a space vessel/station is modular and fitted in groupings for construction, a zero gravity environment might not require you to make the lowest end first, but everything is dependent up the most underlying parts being the way they should be. Without the basic skeletal framework, everything else gets held up because they can't build upon it. When you have about 50% of the outer hull completed, shouldn't you have the skeleton finished entirely?

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Post by Tabi » Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:22 am

From here we can see that there is a skeletal structure that is constructed before they go into detail with the outer plating and other secondary whatnot.

Image

Mind that was the Death Star I, and this is II.

Image

A more technical image:

Image

And a close up on the trench where a Hangar bay is located.

Image

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Post by Thanatos » Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:30 am

? And the bottom of the boat looks like it was finished before any other section.
Nope

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Post by GStone » Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:42 pm

Dude, the bottom of the boat was finished before the upper layers. The last pic you linked showed it was finished before the others.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:03 pm

I believe there was some discussion the DS' construction a while back, and several posters agreed that the battlestations could have had several major components manufactured elsewhere, then brought to their respective sites for final assembly.

In fact, the Death Star EU novel seems to support this idea to an extent with manufacting of various components occuring all throughout the Empire (without the manufactuer necessarily knowing exactly what the components were being made for), then being brought to the Maw in secret.

Based on what we see in RoTS, it looks like the DS1 was built around the toroidal power core, then a sphereical skeletal frame built outward around that. It also appears that the docking bay trench was also completed as well. This would make some sense since that allows ships to bring in supplies, and serve as a self-sustaining manufacturing center and supply depot for the rest of the station with the core in place to provide power for the construction effort.
-Mike

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Post by Tabi » Wed Jan 09, 2008 1:05 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:-Snip-
An excellent summary, Mike.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:16 pm

It may also be that the DS1 frame was completed first in order to demonstrate that certain key technologies were functioning on that scale (e.g., installing a working hyperdrive for something that size) before they invested too much in something that wouldn't actually work.

The difference in the construction technique between the two is very curious.

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Post by GStone » Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:24 pm

That's been my point. Why put on all the bells and whistles of an entirely completed outer hull before you've got the underlying base all done? With the way they're doing things, they must be able to easily close off the exposed areas from space. For out of universe, the visual shouldn't be that much harder to pull off.

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Post by Silverwings » Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:05 pm

GStone wrote:That's been my point. Why put on all the bells and whistles of an entirely completed outer hull before you've got the underlying base all done? With the way they're doing things, they must be able to easily close off the exposed areas from space. For out of universe, the visual shouldn't be that much harder to pull off.
Turn it around, to find a case that already has an answer: Why not put on an outer hull and make it all polished when it already has all it needs to work?

Subterfuge.

To answer your initial question, then, making a DS facade may be enough to do some very impressive posturing. So what if it's not actually working, it can still serve as a carrier, an icon, or rallying point.

Of course, that may be stretching things just a bit given practicality and such, but there are at least a few psychological and maybe even tactical reasons to make a complete shell before finishing the interior.

*shrug*

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Post by Tabi » Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:41 am

I just came across something. After reading a short novel while being bedridden because of a fever-induced Psychosis Fit, the picture of the DS frame after RoTS may not be DS I at all.

There was a prototype built before construction of the first fully operational one was ever put into existence.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star_prototype

Sorry for the information from the above, the mistake was my own.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Sat Jan 12, 2008 4:02 am

Actually, if you look closely at the prototype illustration and compare it to the image of the Death Star I from RoTS, they are not the same at all. The DS1 has a more complete skeletal frame structure at the time that Darths Sidious and Vader are making their inspection.
-Mike

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Post by Socar » Sat Jan 12, 2008 4:37 am

Hasn't Lucas already directly stated that the DS we see at the end of RotS is the same as the DS1 from ANH?

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